A Butler for the home instance

[mindcircus.1506]

@The Greyhawk.9107 said:Only if you have to pay him a salary and he constantly gives you backhanded insults.This would be the only way to get me on board with this ridiculousness.

[Tsakhi.8124]

@"The Greyhawk.9107" said:Only if you have to pay him a salary and he constantly gives you backhanded insults.

It would be like: "Wow, I slave away while you're out gallivanting around acting like a hero or something. You must think you're awesome or something, but you'd think that the great hero of blah blah blah would pay better." (It's not the best choice, it's Spacer's Choice~●☆)

[phokus.8934]

@Fenom.9457 said:

@phokus.8934 said:Sounds awfully lot like a slave.

If the pact commander asked

you

to gather rocks and plants for him, would

you

tell him no? Didn’t think so

Asked and being forced are two totally different things.

Just be warned that you heard it here first - robot slaves will rebel.

[Linken.6345]

Maybe add Drooburt as butler so he finaly pay us back for all the seasonal currency he gets.

[Fuchslein.8639]

So, harvesting tools where Skritts, Otters and robots mine stuff for you isn't slave work?What's the difference between pressing a button so they gater for you and pressing a button so they harvest the homeinie for you?Sure the one needs a few more key pushes, but I doubt that is so important to the tied creatures :''D.

And why only creatures? There could also be magical harvesters, like in the harvesting tools.I could really imagine how the Homeinie suddenly darkens and lightningstrokes comes from the sky and mine the stuff with. I would find that pretty cool and I would even pay more than just 400gems for.

[Fenom.9457]

@Tsakhi.8124 said:

@Fenom.9457 said:

@phokus.8934 said:Sounds awfully lot like a slave.

If the pact commander asked

you

to gather rocks and plants for him, would

you

tell him no? Didn’t think so

If he'd give me a hug and a head pet, I would totally mine rocks and plants. I love to garden and also like to destroy things. <3 (and if he gives me spicy food and sweets, that's a plus)

On topic! I would actually like that. Especially if I can have a Skritt and I can pay it with shinies

junk

and food. And booze.

Of course you get headpats and praise for a job well done! He’s lonely too so somebody to hug is even better than a butler

[Tanith.5264]

What's wrong with M.O.X.? He plays music for us and talks about the cats. What more could a battle-weary commander desire?

[Omega.6801]

@Linken.6345 said:

@lokh.2695 said:

@"Randulf.7614" said:Love it. Love it completely. As long we got plenty of inane chatter from the butler as they went around (with possibly some reactionary ones from us), this would be hilarious

When would you listen to said chatter? In the three seconds it takes you to you load into your home, click "gather all" then leave?

I think the idea here is that the butler would take as long time as the average player to gather instance, so for some people it would be faster to gather yourself.

As I read the OP it's about getting things done faster and without moving. So: Port to home, click on butler to gather all, port out. While I wouldn't care much about the feature, I doubt ANet would generate lots of income from it. Think of the butler skins less like mountskins(which you see all the time, can show off in public and are a big thing of everyday gaming), think of them more like mail carrier skins(hardly noticeable, mostly a private thing no one thinks of). I doubt ANet makes bank from mail carrier skins or else they would have continued to release them.

[Svarty.8019]

@"Balsa.3951" said:Getting bored with gathering my home instance how about a 400 gem item Butler who gather for me.

Anet can make some sweet money by selling Butler skins

What does a butler do?

[Sobx.1758]

@Rauderi.8706 said:I'd use this, for sure.

Of course you would. It would be effectively a limited-usage bot that makes you some money every day with no effort, why wouldn't you use it? :D

Also give me a raid butler, fractal butler, wvw butler and overally open world gathering route butler per map. ^^

[kharmin.7683]

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Rauderi.8706 said:I'd use this, for sure.

Of course you would. It would be effectively a limited-usage bot that makes you some money every day with no effort, why wouldn't you use it? :D

Also give me a raid butler, fractal butler, wvw butler and overally open world gathering route butler per map. ^^

Thanks for helping make my point. This is why I believe such an addition to the game would have an adverse effect on the in-game economy, too.

[Sobx.1758]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Rauderi.8706 said:I'd use this, for sure.

Of course you would. It would be effectively a limited-usage bot that makes you some money every day with no effort, why wouldn't you use it? :D

Also give me a raid butler, fractal butler, wvw butler and overally open world gathering route butler per map. ^^

Thanks for helping make my point. This is why I believe such an addition to the game would have an adverse effect on the in-game economy, too.

Oh no. That's my point, go find your own. :grimace:

[kharmin.7683]

@Sobx.1758 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Rauderi.8706 said:I'd use this, for sure.

Of course you would. It would be effectively a limited-usage bot that makes you some money every day with no effort, why wouldn't you use it? :D

Also give me a raid butler, fractal butler, wvw butler and overally open world gathering route butler per map. ^^

Thanks for helping make my point. This is why I believe such an addition to the game would have an adverse effect on the in-game economy, too.

Oh no. That's my point, go find your own. :grimace:

Wait, it was my point first. Why.... why you.... oh, nevermind. =P

[Randulf.7614]

It would have no noticeable effect in the economy beyond being potentially another gem item to exchange gold for. The output from a regular home instance farm is simply not great enough to dent the economy. Plus those who would buy this would likely be the same people who regularly use their home instance anyway. Even If it got more people into their home instance, the economy is too big and complex for such a small thing to effect it noticeably.On top of that, even at 400 gems it would take some time to break even on a purchase I’d imagine

Such an idea is merely a harmless novelty with some convenience attached. An idea which although fun in theory and somewhat jovial to some of us, seems unlikely to ever be implemented. The closest we would get is likely a butler skinned gathering tool.

Plus, given how many people out Commander has killed, we need someone to blame it all on.

After all, it’s always the butler that did it...

[kharmin.7683]

I disagree. I don't believe that players with home instance nodes log in every day and farm them. This butler idea would farm the instance every day whether or not the player logs in. This could only increase the amount of mats that are introduced into the economy which, in turn, would affect the economy as a whole. At least, that's what I would expect to happen. I'm no economist or expert in the field; I'm just going by business experience. /shrug

[Randulf.7614]

@kharmin.7683 said:I disagree. I don't believe that players with home instance nodes log in every day and farm them. This butler idea would farm the instance every day whether or not the player logs in. This could only increase the amount of mats that are introduced into the economy which, in turn, would affect the economy as a whole. At least, that's what I would expect to happen. I'm no economist or expert in the field; I'm just going by business experience. /shrug

I don’t believe the op suggested it does it when not logged in. That would be an absurd thing to add to the game. It would need activating on entry to the instance and farms in place of you moving from point to point. A suggestion to farm when not logged would be nigh on impossible and worthless to implement

Plus the op wants to buy skins and that’s incompatible with an auto mail out system which is a different suggestion entirely

[Solvar.7953]

My presumption on such a system is that whenever you enter your home instance, the butler would be there and say something like 'Pardon me sir, here is the stuff I gathered today while you were away', and basically gives that 1 day of harvesting - not weeks or months of stuff.Also, I already have random skritt or ogres living in my instance (depending on which path I took when playing through the core game). So giving them something to do wouldn't be unreasonable.The complication here would be pricing - the value of it really depends on how much stuff you have in your home instance. Most home instance nodes have a payback of 1-2 years.In terms of economy, the game has sold lots of stuff in the gemstore which in theory could mess up the economy (tools that no longer break, salvage kits that are cheaper, or just nodes themselves that produce goods). It does save the players a few minutes per day, which they could presumably use making gold elsewhere, I can't see that being a significant impact.

[kharmin.7683]

Then we will have to simply disagree. Good luck with your proposal.

[Danikat.8537]

@kharmin.7683 said:I disagree. I don't believe that players with home instance nodes log in every day and farm them. This butler idea would farm the instance every day whether or not the player logs in. This could only increase the amount of mats that are introduced into the economy which, in turn, would affect the economy as a whole. At least, that's what I would expect to happen. I'm no economist or expert in the field; I'm just going by business experience. /shrug

The OP didn't say that. The first post didn't specify how it would work, and when they did explain later on they said:

@Balsa.3951 said:FunctionalityThe Butler is a little like an SIMs NPC he has his own personality and animations. When u just visit the home instance he will walk around doing stuff like gathering or sweeping the ground. He will have some dialogues he randomly talks like NPCs in the open world do (funny ones is the hope and enough diversity that it needs a while before u heard all he has to say)

How to Gather matsAfter you arrived your home instance u get a special action key (Butler Bell), after pressing this one the Butler will run to u, it can be a few seconds till he reaches u depending on where in the home instance he is at that moment. He then has a welcome sentence like (Welcome Home Master, Dialogue will be different with each different Butler skin) U than interact with the Butler select collect mats to get ur mats.

This I imagine will give the home instance some flavor and not just be a thing must do. It also will be a nice addition when player housing arrives and people will be busy with many other things in their H.I. Than gathering mats.

So you'd still have to log in and go to the home instance to collect the materials. The only difference is that instead of running around the whole area collecting each node yourself you speak to one NPC and get everything together.

It would be slightly more convenient and might make it slightly more likely that some people gather from their home instance. (I have sometimes been so short on time that I skipped doing it because otherwise I wouldn't have time for the specific thing I logged in to do - most recently there was a day when I literally just logged in, did 3 quick Wintersday dailies and logged out again.) But it still doesn't gather for you if you don't log in at all.

It sounds to me like the main appeal for the OP is actually the novelty value of having an NPC you can talk to who does some of the 'work' for you. Since the original post skipped over functionality to focus on possible skins. So I think the intention is something like infinite gathering tools with a minimal convenience factor and a lot of appeal (and potential for repeat sales to some people) from the novelty.

In a game where people will spend real money on chairs to sit in while afk and new animations for mail delivery which last a few seconds, or spend hundreds of hours or thousands of gold to turn their character a different colour I doubt a home instance butler needs to be useful to sell.

[DeanBB.4268]

Maybe you can hire more than one, or when housing arrives with EoD, hire different staff.

I'm hoping for Bates/Thomas-type interactions, but realize that is a lot to hope for (for those who understand).

[Linken.6345]

@DeanBB.4268 said:Maybe you can hire more than one, or when housing arrives with EoD, hire different staff.

I'm hoping for Bates/Thomas-type interactions, but realize that is a lot to hope for (for those who understand).

If housing arrives with EoD we have no clue, stop trying to make it look like we do please.

[DeanBB.4268]

Agreed. Just like we thought there would never be mounts. But you are correct, nobody knows.

[Danikat.8537]

The problem is if you talk about "when" housing arrives with EoD it creates the false impression that it's something Anet has announced, or which we know is definitely going to come. Which then risks disappointing people if it's not included.

I know it probably seems like no one would read it that way, but it wouldn't be the first time someone's confused fan assumptions with actual announcements. (It's even worse on music forums because then you get a stupid feedback loop with trash "journalists" reporting "a source close to the band said..." where their kitten source is 'some guy on an internet forum who seemed pretty sure of what he was saying'.)

[Rauderi.8706]

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Rauderi.8706 said:I'd use this, for sure.

Of course you would. It would be effectively a limited-usage bot that makes you some money every day with no effort, why wouldn't you use it? :D

Also give me a raid butler, fractal butler, wvw butler and overally open world gathering route butler per map. ^^

Wait, there's raid nodes and fractal nodes and wvw nodes (I could definitely use those!)? Why, those are positively great! Where do I get those?

Edit: upon further investigation, those don't exist. Much like the point of this hand-wringing sarcasm.

[Sobx.1758]

@Rauderi.8706 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:

@Rauderi.8706 said:I'd use this, for sure.

Of course you would. It would be effectively a limited-usage bot that makes you some money every day with no effort, why wouldn't you use it? :D

Also give me a raid butler, fractal butler, wvw butler and overally open world gathering route butler per map. ^^

Wait, there's raid nodes and fractal nodes and wvw nodes (I could definitely use those!)? Why, those are positively great! Where do I get those?

Edit: upon further investigation, those don't exist. Much like the point of this hand-wringing sarcasm.

Nah, just automatically complete content for me. Not sure why you try so hard to pretend you didn't understand the point here, but ok.